Methods, systems, and products for interactive voice response

Abstract

Methods, systems, and products are disclosed for administering a personal interactive voice response service. A personalized greeting is retrieved that is associated with a calling party and with a called party. The calling party's response to the greeting is received, and stored information is retrieved that is associated with the calling party's response and with the called party. The stored information is presented to the calling party.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 10 / 152,966, filed May 22, 2002, and now issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,127,400.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates to telecommunications and more particularly relates to systems and methods for enabling a telephone subscriber to customize the handling of incoming calls using interactive voice response (IVR). BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] Not long ago, telephone services were considered necessary but expensive such that a household typically had a single telephone line to serve all of the household members. Today, telecommunications technologies have greatly expanded and telephone services have become less expensive. Many households now have two or more telephone lines, and many people carry portable telephones, also known as mobile or cellular telephones. Some households may have added a second home telephone line for a young child, an aging parent, ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

Enables residential customers to efficiently manage incoming calls by routing them to specific household members or providing topic-specific information, enhancing call management capabilities without the need for expensive customer premises equipment, thus bridging the gap between residential and business telephony services.

Problems solved by technology

Not long ago, telephone services were considered necessary but expensive such that a household typically had a single telephone line to serve all of the household members.

However, there is rarely a home telephone line for each member of the household, and if a household includes a large number of people, it is not practical to have a home telephone line for each person.

Furthermore, there are occasions when mobile phones must be turned off or may not provide quality or affordable service.

People may also be wary of providing their mobile phone number to others who are not either close friends or relatives.

The called party does not have a convenient way to specify incoming call routing instructions based on which member of the household the caller is trying to reach.

Additionally, the called party has no means by which to route an incoming call to a specific member based on the topic of the call, e.g., a caller inquiring about a newspaper ad selling a used car.

Furthermore, the called party has no way to route an incoming call to a specific recorded message (e.g., driving directions to an upcoming party) based on input from the caller.

Even in situations where there is only one person associated with a telephone line, the user cannot generally specify how to handle incoming calls based on the caller's purpose.

Residential telephony customers typically do not enjoy many of the features and services related to management of incoming calls that are available to business customers.

One reason for this is the high cost of the customer premises equipment (CPE) required to provide such features.

Prior IVR systems are large, expensive, and self-contained.

Thus, IVR systems utilized by businesses are not desirable for residential customers because of the expense and lack of customization available.

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